Make no mistake, there are risks in both. Actually, both have advantages and disadvantages. However, both have different skill level needed, patience, hardwork, and so on. When it comes to HODLing, there is not much analyses needed as compared to active trading. HODLing is basically much better with long term. But then you will have to endure the painful sight everytime the market passes through the bear season. On the other hand, day trading involves a lot of strategies and techniques and analyses that you will actively make use of every single day.
This is what make the transition between those two postures so difficult if you want to be a long term holder you need to have a great deal of patience and you need to be willing to endure huge losses but if you want to be a trader you need the opposite skillset you need to be willing to get out of coins at the first sign that something is wrong with them and be capable to take advantage of any opportunity that you see to earn money.
This is why we do not see many people that are capable of doing both simultaneously, we have traders and we have long term holders but we have almost no one in the forum that can trade and when the circumstances are right that can hold.